Vintage Christmas Peg Board

Rainy Day Crafts #1 - DIY Vintage Mood Board

Craft Room Reveal Part Two

My Favourite Pictures From 2013 (Part 2)

July

August

September

October

November

December

Hello everyone!

As promised, here's Part 2 of my favourite posts from each month, Part 1 can be found here in case you missed it yesterday.

What are your plans for New Year's eve?  I'm going to a friends birthday party which will be fun, but will require hair rollers, high heels and large dose of glamour - no small task after a week of hibernating in baggy sweaters and eating chocolate like it's going out of fashion!

Tamsyn x

My Favourite Pictures from 2013 (Part 1)

January

February

March

April

May

June

Hello everyone!

Well here we are, standing on the edge of 2014.  On New Year's eve 2012, I made two resolutions.  One was to wear more red lipstick.  You will have to take my word for it that I stuck to that one!  The other was to start blogging.  So I sat down, came to Blogger, and made the beginnings of a pretty blog.  I was so excited, but so worried that I wouldn't find enough to blog about.  What if I ran out of ideas?  I even made a list of potential subjects/items to photograph, a list that I never even looked at after the first week.  (I've since learnt that the more you use your creative side, the more inspired you become.)  I thought I'd give it a go, see how it worked out.  I never imagined that one year later, I would have joined such an inspiring, creative community, become so passionate about my photography, learnt to fiddle with HTML code (well, sort of!), and that the blog would have been featured in two lovely magazines.  For lots of very dull, grown up reasons it's been a tough couple of years, but I feel so proud of how far I've come with this little project - I'm definitely having a punch the air 'YESSSS!' moment!

So, to celebrate the start of a new year and to look back at 2013, here are my favourite photographs from the first six months of the year, I'll post Part 2 tomorrow. 

 Have a lovely Sunday!

Tamsyn x

Vintage Christmas Cards & Bottlebrush Trees

Happy Friday everyone!

I wanted to share some pictures with you that I took of my pretty vintage Christmas cards.  I bought them from my lovely Twitter friend @brookeslay, who is a fellow vintage bauble lover, and seller of the most the most beautiful vintage ware.  You can find her Twitter page full of gorgeous items and ideas here.  I bought some other pretty vintage cards from her too, which I shall with you in the new year.

I was looking for a frame to display the cards on, when I had the idea of pegging them to the front of this little chicken wire cupboard.  When I bought this cupboard, it was orangey pine and had glass in the doors with wooden slats.  I think it even had funny little fabric curtains.  I removed the glass, took a saw to the slats, and replaced with old chicken wire.  Normally I display my tiny vintage teacups, but on this occasion I decided to put fairy lights inside.  It looks so pretty at night, it glows like a little house.

I bought the little bottle brush trees from a funny little model railway shop in the village my parents live.  When we visit, my Dad takes my little boy there to buy him a small car, train or plane.  I found a box of these old trees amongst the piles of stuff (always rummaging!) and came home with these for a couple of pounds.  Once upon a time, they decorated someone's miniature railway.  I think they add a very Christmassy touch to my little display!

Tamsyn x

Hobbycraft Treasure

Hi everyone!

So as I mentioned the other day, I went to Hobbycraft over the weekend, and came back with lots of lovely things I wanted to show you.  I'm on their mailing list, which is worth doing as you get notified of any special offers and I got sent a 25% off voucher, hence going to get supplies.

Not only did I get lots of basics that I needed (double sided tape, blank cards, clay for making tags, blank canvases etc), I also bought some pretty things for making gifts with.

I love the candy coloured resin roses, I'm going to make some earrings with these.  I also treated myself to a Tilda book of scrapbook papers.  If you haven't seen the Tilda range before, pop over and see what they do here, they do the most beautiful range of papers, fat quarters and sundries.  I bought this book of papers and it's just so ridiculously pretty, I can't wait to use it.  I also bought their silver vintage garland for some festive crafts and gift wrapping.

Have a fabulous day!

Tamsyn x

Polaroid Style Prints

Hello everyone, I hope you've had a fab week so far!

Printing my own photo's at home has always been a bit hit and miss.  I used to fork out an absolute fortune for Canon inks and Canon paper to go in my yep you've guessed it, Canon printer.  In order to try and be a bit thriftier, I then tried cheaper inks and paper, only to disappointed with the quality and slightly faded colours.

However, since then my style of photography has changed, and the cheaper inks and papers actually give me exactly the results I love - a slightly faded, vintage feel.  My face lit up when I went into the Pound Shop the other day, and discovered that you can buy packs of 50 6 x 4 photo paper for, ahem, £1.  Which quite frankly is a bargain.

I decided to try printing out some of my Instagram pictures, and I discovered that by formatting them to print in the middle of the paper with a border, and then trimming the top off, I had these really rather lovely vintage Polaroid style prints.  Perfect for making a lovely mini photo album or scrapbooking.  Or hanging on a picture washing line, or even gift tags...so many fab possibilities!

Tamsyn x

Sunday Snapshots

Have a lovely day everyone!

Tamsyn x

Pastel Velvet Flowers

Hello everyone!

The light was so lovely yesterday afternoon that I made the most of it by taking some photos.  A bit of pastel pretty for a Thursday!  The clocks go back on Saturday, which means it will become more challenging to take pictures once velvety darkness of winter is upon us.

We have something in Norfolk called the Fairy Fair a tiny mini festival of all things fairy, pirate and nature, with a heavy dose of live music and delicious food thrown in for good measure.  It's an organisation set up to try and reconnect people with nature - they have bell tents and teepees where they do children's workshops - wand making, make a mini fairy garden, and elf training camp.  I have taken my children a few times, and it is absolutely magical, I highly recommend it if you are in this neck of the woods.  The next one is in May and if I manage to get tickets I'll take some photos to share with you.

Anyway, I digress - they have beautiful little market stalls at the fair, and a couple of years ago I bought these little velvet flowers from one particularly pretty stall.  Once I got home I regretted not buying more, I love their vintage colours so much - if any of you know of anywhere that sells flowers like this, please do let me know!  

Tamsyn x

Homemade Business cards

Hello everyone!

A few weeks ago I attended the East Anglian Blogger party in Norwich, organised by the very fabulous Gemma at www.retrochick.co.uk.  It took a little courage on my part, as I went knowing that I would not know a soul there, but I thought, 'why not?'.  A mere two days before the big event, I saw the mention of bringing business cards being bounced around on Twitter, which naturally led me to panic slightly - how on earth was I going to get business cards printed in time??  If you have ever seen the film American Psycho, you will understand me on this - I had visions of people pulling beautiful gilt edged cards with elegant scrolled fonts from their pocket to hand out, whilst I stood aside in a cold sweat.  (Obviously I'm exaggerating, but you get my drift!)  

Anyhoo, I then got over my fear, reminded myself that I was never going to be a gilt edged business card kind of gal, and decided to do what I do best - make my own, and embrace the hand made look!  I used small luggage labels from Hobbycraft and cut strips of vintage eiderdown fabric, and printed out one of my favourite vintage photographs to put on the front.  If time had been on my side, I would have liked to have added a little machine stitching on the front, but hey ho.  They will not win prizes for being the slickest business cards, but it matters not - I think they are cute and pretty much sum up the essence of this blog.

On the night itself I had a really lovely time.  I got talking to a really lovely bunch of local bloggers, and  we drank delicious cocktails with great gusto.  Lovely to meet you Sophie, Hazel, Jenny, and Kim!  I look forward to the next blogger party very much!

Tamsyn x

Covered Notebook-Craft Blog Club Challenge

Hello everyone! 

I adore Twitter.  The support I've had over the last 9 months for the blog has been amazing, and I've 'met' some really lovely, like minded people.  Fellow bloggers from across the board, vintage lovers, crafters, florists to name but a few.  Lots of very inspiring people.

I join in with several weekly evening meet ups, such as #vintagefindhour, #handmadehour and #loveyourblog. I have recently found a fab new group on Twitter, who 'meet up' on a Tuesday evening by using the #craftblogclub hashtag.  Craft blog club is organised by the lovely Emma at Life is Peachy, and at the beginning of September, she set us a challenge to cover a notebook.  Quick and easy enough to not get too bogged down by, but also enough to get really inspired and stuck into.

I went for a vintage style cover with pale pinks and a rosette, as well as button embellishments. I used cream coloured felt as a base, then I pulled out lots of my fabric scraps and machine sewed strips of vintage eiderdown fabric and sewed old buttons on.  I love the finished result, and I'm looking forward to taking part in another challenge soon!

If you are on Twitter, pop over and join us!  My Twitter page is here.

Tamsyn x

Ps - I recently set up a Facebook page for the blog for those who are interested, link at the top of the page! x

Sunday Snapshots

Have a wonderful day everyone!

Tamsyn x

Sunday Snapshots

Have a lovely, relaxing Sunday everyone!

Tamsyn x

Box Frame of Vintage Treasures

Hello everyone, hope you had a lovely weekend!

Amongst a weekend of ferrying the children around to parties (their social lives are now busier than mine!), I made it my mission to squeeze in a craft project this weekend to fix my craft junkie addiction.  I'm pleased to say that my mission was accomplished!

  I've had this box frame from The Range knocking around for months now, but finally it has been taken from it's dusty corner and put to good use.  As I mentioned the other day, I wanted to do something lovely with my car boot vintage cigarette cards, so I decided to use a few of them on this mood board box frame, a collection of little 3D treasures, fabric scraps and paper ephemera.  It was quick and easy to make, as the box frames come with the padded fabric backing and a little packet of pins, so all I had to do was to arrange my treasures, and pin them in place.  

I'll share some pictures of what I did with the other cards on another post very soon!

Tamsyn x

Craft Project-Embroidery Hoop

Hello all!

Although there hasn't been a huge amount of crafting going on around here recently, due to the children being on their school holidays (at least not much crafting that doesn't involve copious amounts of glitter or cereal boxes), I do like to have a little project on the go all the time.  I've been inspired by some lovely pictures on Pinterest of embroidered hoops, and I thought I'd give it a go.  This one is obviously a work in progress, but it's the sort of thing you can add a few stitches to as and when you get a spare five minutes!  

I got the hoop from a car boot fair - you must all be thinking 'crikey, does this woman ever shop anywhere else?!', the answer being no, not really at the moment!  I even got lots of lovely fresh vegetables, eggs and flowers from one at the weekend, they are just fab!  Anyway, you can get these hoops very cheaply on good old Ebay.  I'm not sure what I'm going to add next to this hoop, maybe some scraps of fabric, some more flowers and tiny vintage buttons.  It's just fun trying something new out, and being fairly relaxed about how it turns out.  I'll post some pics of the hoop when it's finished!

Tamsyn x

Party preparations...

Vintage greetings cards...